A bit player in the nightly news

There was a young girl born to a wealthy family. She was her father’s adored daughter. As a child she swung on his arm, and played games with him and basked in his love. He gave her so many experiences that she loved and playthings that she enjoyed.

As she grew older, she drifted away from him. She no longer believed that he knew best. She wanted to be her own person and make her own decisions. He warned her about the company that she was keeping, but she ignored him.

She began taking drugs. She began stealing to pay for her habit. At her first arrest, her father was in court to support her and paid her bail. He did the same thing the second time she was arrested. He pleaded with her to get help to kick the habit.

She laughed in his face.

“So you think you’re so high and mighty Mr ---,” she said.

She didn’t even acknowledge to anyone that she was his daughter. She began to use a series of assumed names, hiding her real identity from her associates.

Her father’s life was filled with grief and despair. When word came to him that she’d been arrested again, he decided that the most loving thing he could do would be to let her face the consequences of her decisions. He could no longer encourage her habit by bailing her out every time she was arrested.

The third time, she went to jail.  Her father went to visit her.

“What’s the matter with you?” she screamed at him. “Why didn’t you help me?”

“What kind of a father are you?”

But that’s not the end of the story.

……………..

   “And granted that God does have the capacity to act in the world, it does often look as if he is not paying the sort of attention to what's going on that he should be.” Philip Almond , Professorial Research Fellow in the History of Religious Thought at the University of Queensland.  “Questioning the Miracles of Mother Teresa” ABC News http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-03